Full circle: a theme that eagerly resonates with each member of multiplatinum survivors, Our Lady Peace. As the band approaches the release of their seventh studio album, a feeling of renewal and excitement washes over Toronto’s favorite sons in a manner not felt since their earliest days.
Our Lady Peace
eQB presents excerpts from the June FMQB magazine
Full circle: a theme that eagerly resonates with each member of multiplatinum survivors, Our Lady Peace. As the band approaches the release of their seventh studio album, a feeling of renewal and excitement washes over Toronto’s favorite sons in a manner not felt since their earliest days.
Self-produced in lead singer Raine Maida’s Los Angeles home studio, the 10-track Burn Burn (in stores July 21) marks the longest period between studio albums for Our Lady Peace. It also signifies a sonic and philosophical rebirth. The band now enjoys a creative and professional freedom that they haven’t experienced since the release of their now classic debut.
“I think about the way we made Naveed,” Maida recalls. “We were just starting, we knew nothing about the business and we had no expectations. It was four guys in a room just trusting their instincts. We went back to that. ‘Liberating’ doesn’t really even sum it up.”
Burn Burn is a triumphant return to what Maida terms “a proper, mature rock album,” steeped in the kind of raw intensity that drove their early material. Blinding rays of anthemic light make way to the tender poise and precision of a band that was looking for a way out and found a satisfying new way in.
With caution thrown to the wind, tracks such as the stunningly arranged “Dreamland” and the overpowering first single, “All You Did Was Save My Life,” soar above angry clouds of confusion and insecurity with an ascending clarity that can only come from experience and growth.
“We’re not looking back with any kind of regret,” Maida points out, “but we’ve been doing this long enough now that we know what we want to say. We didn’t want to compromise a thing.”
Having scattered in different directions after the release of 2005’s Healthy In Paranoid Times, all four members took on projects of their own, ranging from solo records, production and songwriting work, tours and guest performances. Over the last two years, Raine Maida, guitarist Steve Mazur, bassist Duncan Coutts and drummer Jeremy Taggart sporadically reconvened and lived at Madia’s home, creating what he calls their best effort to date.
“Nobody knows us better than ourselves,” says founding member Jeremy Taggart. “We didn’t over think a good song or idea or under think anything. The good songs really picked themselves.”
** QB Content by Mike Bacon **
Also in the FMQB June Magazine:
Q&A with WEQX/Manchester, VT–Albany, NY MD Amber Miller
WEQX has a storied history of great music and great programming talent coming out of the Modern Rock mainstay. The independently owned station is respected throughout the format for playing some of the edgier and up-and-coming acts in the Modern Rock world. MD/Midday hostess Amber Miller has spent two years in the woods of Vermont, helping to oversee ‘EQX. She recently took some time to tell FMQB what led her to her “dream job” at this legendary station.
